By Lionel Lavenue, Benjamin Cassady and Michael Su (June 30, 2017, 4:38 PM EDT) -- In late June, Sen. Christopher Coons, D-Del., introduced the 115th Congress' first bill directed to patents, the Support Technology and Research for Our Nation's Growth and Economic Resilience (STRONGER) Patents Act of 2017. The bill ambitiously seeks reform of many areas of patent law, including post-grant proceedings, infringement, injunctions, and "abusive" demand letters. It also leads patent legislation in a different direction. In the 114th Congress, the central issue in patent reform was curbing the so-call "abusive NPE [nonpracticing entity] litigation practices," an effort spearheaded by the Innovation Act (H.R. 9), which would have raised the costs for enforcing patents. In contrast, the STRONGER Patents Act is generally patentee-friendly. It would make invalidating patents in post-grant proceedings harder, and make proving infringement easier. Its sweeping breadth also represents a different approach from that of the "small-fix" bills that targeted narrow areas of patent law near the end of the 114th Congress. At that time, overarching bills, such as the Innovation Act, had been stalled because of competing interests. All these developments in the prior Congress thus beg the question: How likely is the STRONGER Patents Act to pass the 115th Congress?...